Carp Fishing – No Carp Corner – Andy Muir

At last a fish in August! It has always been a rubbish month for me, so I was really pleased to bag myself this lean, hard, fighting common on an evening visit to CWA Fisheries iconic Roach Pit near Ringwood.

Conditions were ideal with it being a warm bright evening, and the water had the slightest tinge of an algae bloom, but was still clear enough to see every stone on the bottom in a foot of water. After I had completed a quick lap of the lake, I was fortunate to find fish feeding in the edge in a couple of the swims.

The first swim I tried looked the most promising with a group of good fish tearing up the bottom, creating a large cloud in the water. It looked like a certain bite. I carefully lowered in small PVA stick and sat back for an hour, slowly the fish started to move out of the area and the chance was gone with them.

I moved round to the second swim that I had seen fish in; a quiet corner of the lake known as “No Carp Corner” where there was a small group of fish browsing the top of the marginal shelf. I climbed the tree in the swim and watched their movements for a while, looking for the best spot to place the rig and waiting for them to leave the area.

I had tied up a short soft braided Trickster hooklink with a small strong size 8 Wide Gape Talon Tip , so I could slide a PVA stick on to the link, and I trimmed down a small pellet Manilla shaped wafter hookbait to sit tantalisingly just above the stick-mix when the PVA dissolved. I really wanted the finished trap to look as subtle as possible in the shallow clear margin.

After waiting patiently for a suitable window of opportunity, I managed to drop it in place without spooking the fish and gingerly slipped back up the tree to see how it was sitting. The fish were straight back on the spot! Consequently, I found myself stuck up the tree right above them, daring not to move.

As I watched, a good common of about 30lb dropped straight on my rig and hoovered up the stick mix and then spat out my hookbait. The fish didn’t seem spooked by this and after a couple of minutes another fish dropped down and did exactly the same thing! I couldn’t believe how they had got away with it and I actually started to get out the tree on the second fish, thinking it was surely being hooked.

My leg was starting to ache from the balancing act up in the tree and I was about to climb down, when a third fish came in and once again sucked up the remaining wafter. As I watched and waited for it to spit it out, like its mates had done, I saw its pecs go rigid and then the fish bolted off the shallow margin – nailed – as it tried to drag my nice new Conti 10 footer off the buzzer!

It’s a tight little area, with overhanging trees and snags on both sides, so I kept the pressure on and managed to keep it away from all the obstacles. For most of the fight the fish kept tight to the bottom down at the base of the shelf or kept trying to get it the snag to my right. Eventually, it popped up of the surface and I scooped it up.

So with a bit of persistance, some great tackle and a monkey like balancing act I managed to break my blanking August run!